Obama fires away at McCain
By Mike Dorning
BANGOR, Me.—It’s Hillary Clinton that Barack Obama must compete against in caucuses and a primary tonight and again in caucuses here in Maine on Sunday.
But to listen to him talk, his mind is on John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee now that Mitt Romney has withdrawn from the race.
Obama began firing away at the Arizona senator moments after he walked up to the podium at the first event of the day, a media event on “tax fairness” in Bangor in which Obama promoted his proposal for a middle-class tax cut while excoriating the Bush Administration for tax cuts that the Democrat said benefit the rich.
Aiming for McCain’s reputation for steady, principled leadership, Obama pointed out that McCain had twice voted against those tax cuts in the Senate before championing their extension as presidential candidate courting the support of anti-tax conservatives.
“He said it went against his conscience to support tax cuts for the rich in a time of war and that it was an act of statesmanship to oppose them. A lot of us respected those words,” Obama said.
“But I think, as he rushed to embrace some of the worst aspects of the Bush legacy, some of the wheels came off the Straight Talk Express because now he supports making those tax cuts permanent,” he continued.
He followed up with a back-handed compliment that is increasingly creeping into Obama’s public remarks.
“I greatly respect Sen. McCain’s half-century of service to this nation,” Obama said.
Translation: Isn’t that what people say at a retirement ceremony? No, wait, a half-century? That sounds more like something out of a history book. And come to think of it, isn’t there a Democratic candidate who is always talking about “35 years of public service?”
For those who didn’t quite pick up on the implications of the young senator’s pleasant-sounding remark, as usual it came with a “but.”
“But what America needs right now isn’t a leader who embraces the failed policies of the past,” Obama continued. “What America needs is a new generation of leadership.”
At a raucous rally afterward that filled a 7,000 capacity arena in Bangor up to a packed nosebleed section and had the crowd clapping, stomping, jumping and shouting along with his speech, Obama wove criticism of McCain into his uplifting hope-filled stump speech.
Though he did mention his Democratic opponent by name at the rally, it was in the course of making the case that he would be the better candidate against McCain. The only boos at the rally were when Obama denounced a comment McCain made last month that he would be willing to stay in Iraq another 100 years if necessary to secure the country.
“When it comes to foreign policy, John McCain says he wants to fight 100-year war—a hundred years, as long as it takes,” channeling outrage from the crowd.
“That is not designed to make us safer,” he continued, shifting the crowd to cheers. “That is simply stubbornness. That is designed to try to make a bad decision look better.”
And that, surely, is a rallying cry that Obama hopes to still be making a hundred days from now—after the last of the primaries is over and the Democrats may have their own presumptive nominee.
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